Current GOP Strategy Echoes Kristol’s 1993 Memo Urging Obstruction Of Dems
With the GOP gearing up to defeat President Obama’s big-ticket initiatives, a lot of folks have been trying to track down a copy of the full memo that Bill Kristol famously wrote in 1993 urging Republicans to block Bill Clinton’s health care reform plan at all costs. Bits and pieces of the memo are floating around but the full one has been elusive.
Well, I have obtained a PDF copy — you can read the whole thing right here. And it’s really a striking read, because it demonstrates two things. First, how much the current GOP strategy seems to echo the strategic objectives Kristol articulated 15 years ago. And second, how much worse off the GOP is now than it was then in terms of being able to achieve those objectives. Here’s the crux:
Passage of the Clinton health care plan, in any form, would guarantee and likely make permanent an unprecedecented federal intrusion into and disruption of the American economy — and the establishment of the largest federal entitlement program since Social Security. It’s success would signal a rebirth of centralized welfare-state policy at the very moment we have begun rolling back that idea in other areas…
The long term political effects of a successful Clinton health care bill will be even worse — much worse. It will relegitimize middle-class dependency for “security” on government spending and regulation. It will revive the reputation of the party that spends and regulates, the Democrats, as the generous protector of middle-class interests. And it will at the same time strike a punishing blow against Republican claims to defend the middle class by restraining government…
Its rejection by Congress and the public would be a monumental setback for the President, and an incontestable piece of evidence that Democratic welfare-state liberalism remains firmly in retreat.
Here’s what’s striking about this. Kristol repeatedly says defeating Clinton on health care would deal a death knell to something that at the time already appeared on its way towards extinction — the “welfare-state,” or the idea that government can improve the lives of the middle class. Kristol describes this idea as “firmly in retreat,” in the process of being “rolled back,” in need of “re-legitimizing.” At the time the defeat of health care was viewed as a potential final victory over liberalism.
Fifteen years later, of course, political conditions are dramatically different. Polls show the public broadly supports a far more activist role for government and backs Obama’s plans to expand the federal government’s role in a way not seen in decades. And it’s conservative ideas that are in retreat. Yet the GOP is pursuing roughly the same strategy today that it did then.
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In the debate over privatizing social security, the Dem argument was mostly it’s not broken; don’t fix it. In the Kristol/health care debate, the argument seems to be no matter how bad it is, any fix will only make things worse. Of course, that also seems to be the Republican argument about the economy these days.
yes. also, this memo reveals, I think, that GOPers had much more reason to be optimistic back then that such arguments would succeed.
Greg, great work in tracking down that memo! It reveals so many interesting developments… and says so much about the stagnancy of conservative thinking since it’s height during the Clinton/early Bush years. I have to say, watching them twist and turn, slowly, painfully in a collective last gasp of life (e.g., CPAC this weekend) is pretty fun for me.
The takeaway from the memo in my mind as well as the Republican opposition of today is this, they don’t care whether something works for the country. All they care about is that any solution is not seen as being liberal in nature. Thats why I can promise you there will be a Republican alternative to healthcare reform promoted and flogged that will be based on the free market and will do more to enrich the health care providers than to help the American people. They know that people want health care fixed but they don’t want a Democrat to be the one doing the fixing. See also the Governator in California. At least 3 times the assembly has passed a bill for universal healthcare but every single time Schwarzenegger vetoed it because it wasn’t HIS bill. Yet everybody keeps promoting him like he is some kind of health care crusader.
Kristol says, “… middle-class dependency for ’security’ on government spending and regulation.”
.
The GOOPers overreached, got what they wanted, and now it’s come crashing down on their heads. Instead of settling for lower spending and lower taxes, they went wild dismantling all kinds of regulation. The result? Financial prestidigitation with CDOs and CDSs, and $140/bbl oil.
.
There’s an intellectual spot for the GOP to position itself for a comeback: well regulated capitalism vs. Obama “socialism.” But it’ll take a few more electoral shellackings before they’ll be able to swallow that — if ever.
I think DanP said it perfectly in the first post, “In the debate over privatizing social security, the Dem argument was mostly it’s not broken; don’t fix it. In the Kristol/health care debate, the argument seems to be no matter how bad it is, any fix will only make things worse. Of course, that also seems to be the Republican argument about the economy these days.” I would add that this has also been their arguement about the Government starting with Reagan, “the government is the problem.” Yet they keep on asking for the public to vote them into government. The only problem now is that it seems readily apparent to even a casual observer of daily events that the Government was the problem especially under Bush II. Many remember Bill Clinton presidency and although they may or may not have liked him the times were better. I suspect that if the current administration is successful in administrating and recruiting indivuduals who can be pragmatic then the GOP will have to radically change, possibly looking more like the conservative parties in the UK and France. I think this is essentially why many in the GOP who want to hold true to a Reagan era rhetoric are openly advocating for the president to fail. Of course this does not sit well with many of the intellectuals and if the GOP loses their intellectual compatriots then the GOP has really been diminished.
Well done, Greg. I’d only seen selected quotes from this memo before. The full text of it fleshes out the rationale and strategy pretty much as we expected.
On another thread, I’d noted Bay Buchanan’s quote from CPAC, “If the economy comes back, the group in power stays in power. It’s that simple.” Yesterday, her brother said that “everyone is now getting behind Rush” re hoping Obama will fail. So it looks like they are really going to head over the edge for the end of party/ideology continuance.
But… I see that Steele, on Saturday, described Limbaugh’s show as “incendiary” and “ugly” (politico). And several days ago, of course, Cantor had said he was not in agreement with Limbaugh’s “fail” idea.
Not clear if this is a further flying apart of the movement/party. Weird times, these.
jzap has it right on the money. Every person with three brain cells is no seeing (and hearing on a regular basis) that deregulation caused what is happening to our country right now. While they may not know about the CDO’s and deregulation of Wall Street, they know that their kids and pets died from stuff we got from China, we had to pay upwards of $5.00 a gallon for gas (I hope Obamaremoves that from future speculation!) on Bush’s watch – something forever etched in stone as a GOP failure, and other things that slapped Joe Sixpack and Wendy Winebox smack in their kissers. Many in this country are stupid, but that is beyond stupid; it’s Republican stupid (self-destructive and completely lacking in compassion).
Good job on getting your hands on that letter. I think the letter from ‘93 along with what Kristol said TWO WEEKS AGO repeating the exact same thing, this should go far. Help spread this info around the blogosphere. Oh, Rachel! Calling Rachel!
Bill “OMFG Iraq is sending drones to kill us all” Kristol:
“(President Clinton’s Health Security plan) is a brazen political strtegy of fear-mongering, conducted on a scale not seen since the Chicken Little energy crisis speeches of president Carter.”
No comment needed, eh?
OK, I have to make *one* comment, CARTER WAS RIGHT YOU DUMB ***.
for those who didn’t hear (is there anyone left who hasn’t?) — limbaugh apologized. first i read was that he blamed it on the democrats (”their the ones saying this ****”) but subsequently i read (and there is apparently video) that he took it all back, said when he looked back at what he said, it wasn’t what he was thinking.
at the rate conservatives/republicans are regressing, by next month they will be literally on the floor throwing temper tantrums. i’m just trying to figure out whether i will put my money on it happening in congress or in a television studio. one way or another, you know that’s coming.
Re: that first post, once again: Although I agree with the second point, the former referring to the Dems having called Social Security not broken, is a bit off. The argument would better be described as stating that Social Security might be broken, but it won’t face shortfalls for some time. Although this should have offered an easy transition into the discussion of medicare, a bigger concern all things considered. Also, as we all recall, Bush’s “plan” was to fix the future shortfalls in Social Security by taking more money away from it…so reminiscent of an argument we hear regarding education: “It doesn’t work well, so let’s cut it’s funding further.”
In 1945, Clement Atlee defeated the hero of WWII in the first British elections since 1935. He largely won because of promises to provide universal healthcare to the British people. Even though Churchill came back in 1951, he was unable to undo most of Labour’s reforms because of their popularity. Labour programs became British programs, and Tories do not dare talk of privatizing health care.
Republicans are not making arguments based on economics. They are arguing that if Obama passes health care reform, he will be a hero to most Americans and force Republicans to accept national health care just as they embraced Medicare and Social Security.
The US health care system was in trouble before the depression began. With more and more people losing their jobs, that means millions more Americans are without health insurance. Just as Social Security meant that older Americans don’t starve to death, universal health insurance means that you don’t risk premature death due to illness just because you are out of work.
Well, I have obtained a PDF copy — you can read the whole thing right here.
Quick! Check the kerning! [/freeper]
How about a downloadable PDF instead of that tiny, pathetic page-by-page format?
FYI, the Kristol document to text here: http://gist.github.com/73458